


you think you know (you don't know)

by sarsaparillia



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Multi, OT3, Pre-Relationship, Sam's POV, look caroline fucked the wizard and now her daughter gets to deal with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29102691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarsaparillia/pseuds/sarsaparillia
Summary: "Hey. Can I tell you a secret?"Sam, Abigail, and Sebastian on Abigail's hair.
Relationships: Abigail/Sam/Sebastian (Stardew Valley), F/M/M - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	you think you know (you don't know)

**Author's Note:**

> **notes** : headcanon ahoy.  
>  **notes2** : look, we all know caroline fucked the wizard. we all know abby's his daughter. her hair is magic purple because i said so.  
>  **notes3** : _bloody valentine_ — machinegunkelly.

—

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"Hey. Can I tell you a secret?"

Sam blinks at Abigail, upside down. Sometimes you gotta hang off your best friend's bed while said best friend sits on his computer and ignores you while your _other_ best friend lazily swings her legs back and forth on the floor. That's just the way it is, you know? Especially on a Sunday in the middle of winter, when it's too cold even think about going skinny dipping in the summer.

"What kinda secret? Do we need to have serious time?"

Abby bites her lip. "I—yeah, I think so. If that's cool?"

"Yeah, 'course," Sam says, magnanimously. He gropes around the bed to find a comic book to chuck at Sebastian's head. "Hey, you, we're having serious time!"

"Do we have to," says Sebastian, but he doesn't mean it, really, because he's already clicked out of whatever it is that he's working on to make his way towards them. Abby pinks up with pleasure at the immediate response.

"Hey, there are _rules_ about serious time!" Sam narrows his eyes. "We _agreed_!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Sebastian sighs. He drops down next to Abby, just an inch too close. The scruffy top of his head brushes against Sam's jaw. Abby's sat up, too, her back against the bed, propped up like abandoned toys. They'll end up all tangled together, and it'll hurt like a hole in the lung, and Sam tries not to think about it too much, because he ends up confused about who he's jealous about the most.

(Emotions are stupid. Whatever.)

Once they're all settled, Sam and Sebastian turn to stare unblinkingly at Abigail.

She colours. "Can you two quit staring?"

"You _did_ call Serious Time," Sebastian says, mildly. Sam can hear the capitalization in his voice, which is deeply annoying on a lot of levels.

"Yeah, but—you're not supposed to stare! Isn't that, like, rude?"

"Don't be rude, Sebastian," Sam parrots, in such a horrifyingly good imitation of Sebastian's mom that Sebastian actually cringes away from it.

"Jesus, Sam, what the fuck, why do you do that so well?!"

"Because your mom is my dream girl?" Sam says, batting his eyelashes.

" _Why_ —" says Sebastian, and it would start a scuffle except that Abby snickers out of the corner of her mouth and then they both remember that they're having serious time, and bitching about Sebastian's mom kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

They settle.

"Okay, Abby, go. What's up?"

She takes a long, slow breath. "What d'you guys think of my hair?"

"Cool as fuck," Sam says promptly.

"It suits you," Sebastian agrees, and then picks miserably at the orange roots of his own dyed hair. "Dunno how you get it to stay, though. Doesn't it wash out?"

"That's the secret," Abigail says, very softly. She touches the long, purple locks, not looking at either of them, shame-faced. Her hair glows faintly in the dim light slick and unreal, the colour of raw iridium. "It—it grows in like this. It's just, like, purple, now? I haven't told my mom; she thinks I'm dyeing it."

Sam and Sebastian look at each other out of the corners of their eyes. _What the fuck_ , they don't say. They all digest this for a moment, and under cover of the silence, Sebastian carefully slides an arm around Abigail's shoulders to tuck her a little closer into his side. Sam, too, slips down from the bed to sit tight on her other side. Like bookends, or guards, or keepers.

"Why haven't you told her?" Sam asks.

"I don't know," says Abby. She hugs her arms tight around her middle, huddling between them, so small and so miserable. "I just, I don't know, I don't think I should?"

"Abby," Sebastian says, gentle. "C'mon."

"You _know_ what she's gonna say," Abigail whispers, voice hoarse, crackling like new ice. "She's—and my _dad_ , you guys, my _dad_ —"

Sam looks at Sebastian over the top of Abigail's purple head, and watches the storm take root there in his best friend's eyes. There's a lot to be said for living in small towns, but everyone knows everyone else, and even though Sebastian's mom wasn't around when Pierre and Caroline were fighting before Abby was born, she'd _heard_ about it. Sam's mom had been there, and _she'd_ heard it, and that was enough. If one person hears something in a town like Pelican Town, the whole town does.

Because people talk, you know? People talk.

And everyone saw Caroline storming off into Cindersap Forest, and how those disappearances got more and more frequent, and they'd all expected that one day she might just not come _back_ —

But the opposite happened, and now Sam and Sebastian have Abby, and it's not like it's a fucking _secret_ , okay, it's not like no one knows!

"D'you know what, y'know—" Sam wiggles his fingers at Abigail's everything, "—did this?"

"Very eloquent, Sam," Sebastian says, dryly.

"Was I talking to you? No, I don't think so. I think I was talking to Abby. So I reiterate, _Abby_ , d'you know what did this?"

"How do you know that word?" Abigail asks, blinking up at Sam, melancholy momentarily forgotten to colour the air around them. "Reiterate, I mean. How do you know that word?"

"I _read_ ," Sam says, sticking his nose in the air.

"Sweeping the library doesn't count," Sebastian says, and Sam struggles with not murdering him.

But Abigail tucks her face into his shoulder, and she's smiling, and Sam deflates a little. He can take a little ribbing if it means the glass beneath Abby's skin doesn't shatter into a million shining pieces. Sometimes it sticks in his throat, how much he likes them. Sometimes, he doesn't think it's just _like_. But it's not the greatest thing to think about when they're wrapped up this close, tucked so neatly into one another.

Sam swallows around the thickness in his throat.

"If you don't like it, you can dye it back," Sebastian says, carefully. He's always reading Sam's mind. Mouth to brain.

"I don't want to," Abigail says. She shrinks into herself. knees up to her chest. "That's sort of the problem."

Sam shuffles a little closer, bends to knock his chin against the top of her head. It's not quite a kiss, but it's not quite _not_ a kiss, either. They can all pretend it isn't for now, but if Abby tilts her head up, or Sam tilts his head down, it might be. Sebastian watches them with dark eyes, haunted and hungry all the way through.

"I like it," Sam tells her, quiet with raw honesty. Her hair is soft as silk beneath his lips, and it muffles the words. Maybe he says something else. Maybe he says _I like you_. No one's ever going to know. "You should keep it like this."

"Sam's right," Sebastian says, still so careful, still so close.

Abigail sighs. She holds the silence for a minute, and Sam can only hold her, can only hold him, can only hold them both and thank whatever gods exist that he's got two hands. Sebastian's palm flexes on Sam's shoulder, and Sam thinks he might not be the only one struggling with the space between them.

"I know it's stupid," Abigail murmurs. "It's just hair, right? But it's—it's not normal."

"Your mom's hair is _green_."

"Hey, shut up about my mom!"

"I mean, Seb kinda has a point, Abs."

"Okay, I hate it when you two team up against me," she mutters. "Could you not?"

Sam's mouth crooks against her temple. He lifts his gaze to Sebastian's, and doesn't expect to find understanding there, cool and quenching as a mountain stream. They bracket the girl in between them. Sam's heart thuds so loud he wonders if they can hear it.

Maybe not.

"Sure, sweetheart," Sam says, instead of wondering, and relishes the way that Abigail's mouth curls. Not quite yet, but close. _Close_. "Whatever make you happy."

—

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_fin_.


End file.
